How To Embarrass Yourself At the Snow

Snow season is right around the corner in the Southern Hemisphere and that’s fertile ground for making yourself into a right, royal goose. And I don’t mean a cute little fluffy snow goose. I mean an embarrassing representation of yourself. It doesn’t doesn’t take much, so please avoid the following situations for your own sake, if not for everyone else’s.

The Talk

Take care talking up your ability. The skis don’t lie. If you talk up your ski prowess en route to the snow, you’d better deliver on it and DON’T blame an injury or you’ll travel home very, very solo.

The Attire

It’s great to save a little money and luckily snowgear lasts decades but take care the multi-coloured one piece outfits on adults, matching outfits on friends, cutesy prints on teens or too much matching ‘Aldi supermarket’ wear within the one family. General rule of thumb is just one decade of use, as difficult as that may be for some people to hear, I know.

The Walk

Hold that handrail tightly, ski boots are very slippery. The ski village is full of booby traps, particularly after you’ve enjoyed a schnapps or a wine at lunch. If you’re having a romantic weekend or trying to impress someone special you’d better change into apres or walking boots unless your best look is sprawling awkwardly on the stairs.

The Stack

Everybody stacks so don’t pretend. It’s a little like driving a car, you need to watch out for the other idiots. Stay off the beginner slope where possible if you don’t want to have your knees knocked from beneath you. The less people populating the slope the better.

The Boogas

Skiing and snowboarding is essentially snot management. That’s why there’s tissues available in lift lines and tissues for sale in ski stores and gift shops. Some people have more insidious boogas dripping from their nose than others but if you’re ill-prepared or off with the pixies you might wonder why people are trying to avoid you when you talk.

The Chairlift Chatter

Some skiers and boarders love the trapped environment of a chairlift, their co-chairlift rider their captive audience. Some like me, sit in silence with ski jacket zipped up to nose level gazing at the wonderment of the mountains. Some attempt a little ‘small talk’. Beware if you’ve got your one-liner well-rehearsed “So..who voted for Trump?”, defying statistics it is actually humanly possible to sit next to the very same people on your next chairlift ride up. It’s sad whether to break it to them “Yeh, you asked me on the chair ride up before” or hearing them launch into the same story again. A common mistake for conversation-starved over 55 year old men and often precedes a chilly ride up to the top station.

About Author

Emma

It was a ski brochure on the Dolomites (Italy) that first stirred Emma's interest in all things ski-related. That endless white moonscape, skiable as far as the eye can see... those geological wonderments. All those hot gluhwein drinks! Promptly quitting her Japanese language teaching job Emma hot-footed it to Austria to become a a ski-instructor, got engaged and did a season alternating between consuming chicken schnitzels and demonstrating the 'alpine position' to English ski students. Whist still not fulfilling her Dolomite ski fantasy, Emma happily lives and breathes her passion, albeit through writing and finds North America and Japan great snow resorts to share with her young family. Particularly the buffalo wings and the okonomiyaki.